No doubt you are familiar with the term ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ which refers to someone with two completely different personalities. It is from the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, set in 19th century London.
Dr. Henry Jekyll is a well-respected scientist in London. He is fascinated by the goodness and evil that is possible in each person. He is also tired of always being treated as such a good and respected person in society. He manages to create a potion which completely changes his personality into someone very sinister, Mr. Hyde, who then goes out at night committing terrible acts of violence and murder.
The first time, after the potion wears off, he is horrified at what he has done, but then he wants another taste of it and tries it again. As time goes on he needs more of the potion to have the same effect, but he also wants more and more of it. In the end he reaches a point of no return, where he completely becomes the evil character Edward Hyde. He has now been transformed into someone consumed with evil. Finally, realizing what has happened he takes his own life.
The story is a good analogy of what can happen to each of us depending on the choices we make. One thing it reminds me of is the tendency to hate, that is in all of us. We are not born full of hatred. It is something we choose and sometimes are taught.
A priest friend of mind from Northen Ireland, was telling me that during what were known as ‘the troubles,’ where there was so much hatred and violence between Catholics and Protestants, there were also many good people who wanted to end the violence and to build bridges between the two sides. He told me that he was invited one time to speak to the children in a Protestant elementary school. To my astonishment he also told me that the first thing he had to do when he went into the younger children, was to take off his shoes and socks and show them that he didn’t have hooved feet. Their parents had taught them that priests were the devil and that they had hooved feet. They were breeding hatred into these children from their earliest years. So sad.
Hatred is something that our society is seeing a lot of at this time. People are full of hatred for other groups of people, sometimes immigrants, for one political party or the other, for one president or the other, for one pope or another. It amazes me how many times in confession people have told me that they hate one group or another. But hatred is something we choose to do. Like the potion that changed Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, the more we hate, the more we are filled with hatred and it begins to flow into other parts of our life as well.
No group is worth hating. We may be angry with them, or disagree with them and sometimes need to condemn people for wrong doing, but we always choose to hate or not to hate.
When you hear about some of the horrors that drug cartels, or organized crime are engaged in, it would make you wonder how individuals can do such terrible evil to other human beings, not just killing, but torturing as well. They don’t start out that way, but they get involved in crime and gradually keep choosing to do more and more, until they are no longer affected by it. It takes them over and they end up doing things that no human being was ever meant to do. We choose to hate or not to hate, to commit crime or not to commit crime. Even if it only seems like minor things like political parties, we can still choose to hate or not to hate. We can dislike and even be angry with injustices that happen, but without hating.
What we fill our minds with is also going to determine how we think. If we are taught to hate a person, or group of people, from an early age, then it is only going to get worse as we get older, unless we choose to stop hating.
In this strange and terrifying event that we read about in the Gospel, the transfiguration, there is one line in it that always strikes me, where God the Father says, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’ ‘Listen to him.’ Listen to Jesus, to what He teaches. Fill your mind with his teaching, not the teaching of the world, which is usually the complete opposite.
I remember someone telling me about their father, who was now a widower, and spent most of the day with the TV on listening to nothing but the news and getting more and more angry and anxious every day, with all that is going on. As you know, there is no news like bad news. Bad news is what sells. It is what gets us to watch more, or listen to more and much of what we are told often isn’t true. If I continually fill my mind with the thinking of the world, I am probably going to become anxious, angry and filled with hatred. That is why it is so important that we keep listening to the things of God, all that is written in the Scriptures.
In the second reading, St. Paul refers to those who are not living as Christ calls us to and he says, ‘Their minds are filled with earthly things,’ and so they have turned in on themselves. He goes on to say, ‘But our citizenship is in heaven.’ If we remember our destiny and that we only have a limited time in this world and that ultimately all things will be subject to Christ, in other words, that there will be perfect justice, that can change our outlook considerably. We see a bigger picture. If I’m only focused on that bad things that are going on right now and forget the bigger picture, it will also color the way I see everything in the world.
Many people have said to me, ‘I am so worried about what I see happening in our country,’ that is before and since the election. Why are you worrying about what is going to happen in the country? What is important is that I play my part to make it a better country and a better world and then let it go. What will happen will happen.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 6:25 ff.), Jesus says,
‘Why do you worry about tomorrow. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
The Father knows what you need, even before you ask him.
Seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be given you as well.’
I need to focus on today and what I can do today. Remember that our destiny is not this world, but heaven. Whatever happens around us, happens. If we focus on what God teaches us, then our mindset will be different and we ill influence the world in a better way, but that is something that we must choose to do.
I want to finish with this inspiring letter by a French journalist after the terrorist attack on a concert in Paris, in 2015.
On Friday, November 13, 2015, in Paris, gunmen broke into a concert hall and shot 129 dead.
A journalist by the name of Antoine Leiris, posted this letter entitled, “You Will Not Have My Hatred,” to Facebook, less than three days after his 35-year-old wife of 12 years, Helen Muyal-Leiris, was killed. She was one of 129 individuals killed during the series of attacks in Paris that Friday night.
Friday night, you took an exceptional life—the love of my life, the mother of my son—but you will not have my hatred. I don't know who you are and I don't want to know, you are dead souls. If this God, for whom you kill blindly, made us in his image, every bullet in the body of my wife would have been one more wound in His heart.
So, no, I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You're asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.
I saw her this morning, finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago. Of course I am devastated by this pain, I give you this little victory, but the pain will be short-lived. I know that she will be with us every day and that we will find ourselves again in this paradise of free love to which you have no access.
We are just two, my son and me, but we are stronger than all the armies in the world. I don't have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either.
‘This is my Son, the Beloved. Listen to him.’
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